A novel that questions the right of an author to appropriate stories as it defends the right of the character to live them.
Lucy Lurie, the character at the heart of J.M. Coetzee’s acclaimed novel Disgrace, is reimagined as a real person struggling with the aftermath of both her rape and the use of her trauma as a symbol for the ostensibly larger ordeals of a post-apartheid South Africa.
Two years ago, Lucy Lurie was raped. Her attack was particularly brutal—there were multiple assailants, all of whom were strangers—and was widely reported upon by the South African media. Lucy, who is a junior lecturer at the fictional University of Constantia in Cape Town, recovers physically from her assault, but she struggles with severe PTSD, which leaves her with debilitating anxiety and agoraphobia. Prevented from working by her psychological condition, Lucy becomes more and more isolated, her social circle eventually reduced to the company of her therapist; her friend Moira, a self-proclaimed “literary star-fucker”; and her father, who witnessed her rape but seems to have moved on. Lucy’s ongoing trauma is further complicated by the fact that the formidable John Coetzee, a former senior colleague of hers at the university, has written a literary blockbuster based on her experience. And here’s where Snyckers’ book gets tricky. Because, of course, J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace does center the violent rape of the fictional character Lucy Lurie by a group of black African farm laborers as the lacuna that shapes the book’s overarching narrative metaphor. Snyckers’ Lucy Lurie, in the tradition of Antoinette Cosway in Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea, insists on both the reclamation of her personal experience and the recognition of her erasure. However, unlike Rhys' Antoinette, who lives fully enmeshed in the systemic oppressions enacted upon her, Snyckers’ Lucy is a sharp, analytical thinker well versed in the post-structuralist theory that makes her argument both trenchant and assailable. Snyckers’ Lucy takes issue with her fictional counterpart’s placid acceptance of her role as “the vessel through which the new world order will be born, in the person of her brown child.” Snyckers’ Lucy would like Synckers’ Coetzee—a figure akin to the real-life author but also understood as a fiction in his own right—to acknowledge the ways in which his appropriation of her narrative was a secondary reenactment of her trauma. Her quest for that reckoning becomes the central hinge upon which this surprising, subtle, and deeply challenging book swings.
A novel that questions the right of an author to appropriate stories as it defends the right of the character to live them.Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-60945-725-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
